Polearms: when meleeing a foe armed with a polearm (ranseur, halberd, pike, longspear, etc.), you lose 1D from your combat pool, unless you also are using a polearm. This mechanic comes from one of Greg Stolze's supplements to Reign, and accounts for the extra reach of polearms.

Blind fighting: when you attempt to hit something you cannot clearly see (pitch dark, or you're blinded, or target invisible, etc.), you succeed only on a Difficulty 5 success in melee. If you can't see it but can hear it and distinguish target's noise from ambient sounds, Difficulty drops to 4. Midari are never considered to be blind fighting. However, in close quarters melee in enclosed spaces (cramped fighting in a tunnel, or lots of echoes in a cavern combat), Midari suffer -2D in combat; this drops to -1D if their Sense stat is 5+

Group effort: If multiple people work on a task, they all roll the appropriate dice pool with the same difficulty and applying any bonuses or penalties. Once all dice are rolled, the character with the narrowest and shortest set becomes the baseline. All other characters may then contribute a single die to the baseline. Example: the party must build a raft to cross a river. The GM rules this is a Difficulty 2 task; i.e., sets with a Height of less than 2 don't suffice. Ulic, Byron, and Aesop roll. Ulic gets to roll 4D (Knowledge 1 + Survival 3). The other two get 2D apiece. Ulic manages a set of Width 2 and Height 5. Byron has no sets, and Aesop has a Width 2 and Height 3 set. Aesop's set becomes the baseline: 2x3. Byron rolled (1,6) so he's unable to help. But Ulic rolled (1, 3, 5, 5), so he adds his "3" to the baseline, turning Aesop's 2x3 result into a 3x3. The raft is well-constructed and should prove serviceable! In the unlikely event that no one had scored a set, the test would have failed normally. Note: many tasks are not amenable to multiple people contributing: riding a horse, picking a lock, climbing a wall. The GM will make a judgment call about which tasks can benefit from group effort. Anytime the PCs succeed at a Group Effort roll, each PC that participated earns 1 SEP.

Minimum Success: Most of the time, a Width 2 set is the bare minimum dice pool result needed to be successful at whatever the roll is deciding. However, if your GM tells you, in advance, that you need at least a Bare Minimum Success, then — in addition to any set being a success — any Run (i.e., three consecutive die values) is also a success. For example: {1,2,4,5,6,8} would ordinarily be a failure. However, if the GM had informed you prior to your dice pool roll that you need at least a Bare Minimum Success, then the {4,5,6} dice results, which form a Run, would constitute a Bare Minimum Success. Note: a Minimal Success never succeeds in combat. It is for situations like resisting deadly poisons, catching a root and hanging on as you're knocked over a cliff, etc.

Psi: Psionic ability operates through the Psi skill, which falls under the Command stat. Whenever the psionicist's head receives Killing damage, all Command+Psi rolls lose X dice until all Killing damage is removed from the head — where X is the number of points of Killing damage in the head.

Autocomplete: If a character undertakes a task that isn’t time sensitive, that character may Auto Complete. The Game Master determines how long it will take to complete the task in terms of Minutes, Hours or Days and multiplies that by the Difficulty of the task. Once the time factor is determined, if the character opts to spend that much time at the task, they may succeed automatically without rolling a die. Auto Complete gives you the equivalent of a Width of 2 with a Height equal to your skill rating. You may always feel free to ask your GM, "Can I take an AutoComplete for this action?" It's the same as as the following in Dungeons & Dragons: "Can I take 10?" Note: you can't take AutoComplete for a task in which you are opposed or in competition with another (an essay contest, a barbecue cook-off, a work of art that will be judged alongside those of other artists.

Gobble dice: Gobble Dice are generated when one rolls an appropriate dice pool while opposing some action. Ulic and Byron decide to arm wrestle. Obviously, Byron's had too much to drink. As the more vigorous, Ulic rolls his pool and get 3x7. Byron gets a 2x4. Ordinarily each die in that set (4,4) could gobble one of the 7's in Ulic's set, reducing it to Width 1, which isn't a set. However, the Height of Byron's gobble dice (4) is insufficient to enable to Gobble Dice to affect Ulic's set, which is Height 7.

Posting frequency: Try to post daily. That's ideal. But at a minimum, post every other day during the week. Less than that can lead to a PM from the GM. The more you post, the more posting XP you get. Weekends are optional but if you can post, please do.

Character generation: Character generation is point-buy (85 points). Here is an example of a character built with 85 points (actually with 84 points; the player kept 1 XP in reserve). You start with one point in each stat, then modify for racial bonuses and penalties or you can say you're playing an atypical member of your race and start with a 1 in every stat, unmodified by race. Use point-buy as explained below. You can't have a zero in a stat, naturally, nor can you buy a Stat up to value higher than six (see p. 219).

Combat: Combat works like so: If necessary, determine Surprise (Sense+Hearing or Sense+Sight vs. Coordination+Stealth). Surprised PCs or NPCs lose the opportunity to react in the Surprise round, unless some Esoteric Discipline or magic item allows them to do so. It's a really bad thing to be surprised, except at birthday parties. In a normal, non-Surprise round, PCs and foes (a) declare actions, (b) everyone rolls appropriate dice pools, (c) declared actions with greater Width resolve before lower-Width actions. When Widths are tied, Heights win initiative and resolve first, (d) apply damage and other effects, (e) round ends; anyone dead or out of the action?

Esoteric Disciplines & Paths: You may purchase multiple Esoteric Disciplines and/or Martial Paths at character creation. However, you will be required to complete each of them prior to beginning any new Disciplines or Paths. Otherwise, you're just cherry-picking. Be aware that your character is limited to 15 Martial Techniques (there are usually 5 in a given Martial Path). See p. 219 in the Reign RPG rules. If you become disenchanted with a Martial Path, you can — once per game session (or thread, for play-by-web) — lose the highest remaining technique in a given Path, recouping 1 XP. You can do this until all ranks are gone, and you've recouped 1 XP per rank sacrificed. You can only do this once per character lifetime. Example: a player has become jaded regarding his earlier choice of Iron Tortoise path, in which his PC has gained the first three tiers. Over the course of three game sessions, he can lose all three tiers, regain a total of 3 XP, and free up a slot for a new Martial Path to be taken.

Character improvement: After character creation, increasing normal skills and your Stats can be done solely by expending the required XP. Buying the next tier in an Esoteric Discipline or Martial Path requires paying a mentor and training with her. Payment may be in the form of trade, or rendering a service, or in coinage. You can have Dice Pools larger than 10D via Virtual Dice. If your Stat+Skill pool totals more than 10D, any additional dice are virtual and can only be used to offset penalties incurred by taking multiple actions. Some detailed examples can be found here.

Colloquialisms: Be aware that the majority of colloquial expressions from the 21st century have not made it into the 47th. You won't hear NPCs saying any of the following, nor should the PCs: Penny for your thoughts; I'm hangin' in there like hair in a biscuit; they're a dime a dozen; what on Earth is the matter?; etc. The current age is as far removed from 21st century Earth as the ancient Greeks were from the Internet Age. Your GM isn't going to penalize you if you engage in anachronistic phrasing. This info is simply provided to help maintain the flavor of the campaign.

Spells: You must know a spell in order to cast it. You cannot choose to take multiple actions while casting a spell. There are a few exceptions. Sometimes you can aim a spell (see rule book p. 261). Some spells take multiple rounds to cast.
Spells have a Difficulty rating that is equal to their Intensity. To successfully cast, your set must have height equal to or greater than this difficulty. Unless a spell's description says it can be blocked or parried, it can't be. Unless the description stipulates that armor protects against it, it doesn't. (There are spells and objects that give AR ratings against magic damage. That kind of AR works. AR from shields, breastplates and Martial Techniques are generally useless against enchantment.) If you maintain a spell across multiple rounds, you are assessed a -1D penalty when attempting to cast further spells while that spell is sustained.

Efficacious blandishment: The overarching rule of efficacious blandishment states that a character who tries to do something outside the letter of the game’s other rules may do so, provided that the player convinces the GM that this action falls within the spirit of the story. Thus the only true circumscriptions on your actions are maintained by the twin poles of your persuasiveness and your GM’s gullibility ;) That said, be prepared for whatever dice pool you're told to roll.

Falling damage: The rules for falling damage are fairly simple. For every five feet a character falls, he takes 1d in an Area attack, to a maximum of thirty dice. A character who takes a moment to dangle and drop in a controlled fashion can reduce the pool by 2d. This damage ignores mundane armor. The type of damage done depends on the surface onto which the hapless character falls. If it’s something yielding – water, deep mud, a snowbank after falling through many evergreen branches – the dice do Shock damage. If it’s an unforgiving surface, like soil or flat rock, the dice do Killing damage. Particularly vicious surfaces add more dice to the pool at the GM’s discretion, though more than 10d is probably uncalled-for.

Drowning: When your character goes in water over his head, roll Body+Athletics. (Remember armor penalties: -2d if you’re in Medium armor, no chance of success in Heavy.) For every die in a set, she can either move five feet in any direction (including up or down) in one round; or stay afloat without rolling for a minute. Every five rolls, she should make a Body+Endurance check. If she succeeds, nothing changes. With each Endurance failure, all future Athletics rolls to swim are at –1d, until she gets out of the water and catches her breath. Difficulties are a good way to model other hassles of staying afloat, such as stormy weather, high seas, or people on shore trying to murder you. If you’re hauling someone out of the water lifeguard-style, for example, that increases the Difficulty of your Athletics roll by 2 if they’re small, 3 if they’re normal-sized or larger.

Healing: It’s fairly simple to get rid of Shock damage. After the fight, as soon as you’ve had a chance to shake it off, get your bearings and maybe rub your sore muscles a few times, half the Shock you’ve taken in that fight disappears (round up). In addition, the use of various healing skills can relieve Shock damage pretty easily.
Once per day, a character can benefit from the attentions of a healer. If the healer rolls successfully, a number of Shock damage points equal to the Width of the roll is removed, from whichever locations the healer wishes. For
this roll, Height of the set does not matter. Rest and relaxation also cure Shock damage. Every time your character awakens from a good night’s rest, you may make a Body+Vigor roll. If it succeeds, you may remove a number of Shock points equal to the Width of the roll.
Killing damage is another matter. If a character does nothing but rest and recuperate for a full day, a healer can attempt a roll to help him. If the roll is a success
– any success – one point of Killing damage is turned into Shock, at a location of the healer’s choice. Only one such attempt is permitted per day. If a character goes a week without taking any more damage, one point of Killing damage on each limb turns into Shock all by itself. When a character’s head or torso fills up with Killing damage, the character dies. That’s it. Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

Dice types: Dice pool penalties always affect special dice first! When you have virtual dice due to very high skills, if any penalty remains after offsets, subtract the expert or master die first before any normal dice. Note: you can only have one or the other special die in a pool — expert or master, not both. Waste Dice (also known as Loose Dice) are any dice that do not form part of a set after rolling.
Generally, these dice are wasted and unusable but certain game effects can take advantage of them.